PSMITH, SUNDIAL, FORTY-TWO STORIES and More Set for City Lit's 2016-17 Season

City Lit Theater's 37th season will honor its traditions while bringing Chicago audiences four plays that will be new to nearly all audience members. The season lineup announced today by City Lit artistic director Terry McCabe includes a mix of three world premieres (two of them adaptations of novels and one original new comedy), plus a classic comedy of the 19th Century that has not been seen in Chicago in 120 years.

City Lit has long been known for its adaptations and performances of the writing of British humorist P.G. Wodehouse. McCabe's original adaptation of Psmith, Journalist will be the company's first adaptation of a Wodehouse novel in 12 years and will bring Psmith (the "p" is silent), one of the writer's most popular characters, to the City Lit stage. The laughs will be followed by chills when Paul Edwards' original adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Sundial opens in January. This philosophical and frightening ghost story set in a haunted mansion was an inspiration to Stephen King for his novel The Shining.

A housing structure of a different sort will be the setting for the world premiere of Forty-Two Stories, a new comedy by Chicago playwright Douglas Post. Set in a Lake Shore Drive high-rise condominium, the new play explores life among residents of the upper floors along with those who work below in the lobby, the office and the basement. The season will conclude next summer with Chicago's first production since 1897 of Irish playwright Dion Boucicault's comedy from 1841, London Assurance.

Subscriptions are available at $90.00 good for all performances or $68.00 for preview performances. Subscriptions may be ordered online at www.citylit.org. Single tickets, priced at $24 for previews and $29 for regular performances will be on sale soon at www.citylit.org. Senior prices are $20 for previews and $25 for regular performances. Students and military are $10.00 for all performances.

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CITY LIT THEATER'S 2016/17 SEASON:

Psmith, Journalist
Adapted from PG Wodehouse's novel
Directed and Adapted by Terry McCabe
WORLD PREMIERE
Previews Friday, September 23 - Saturday, October 2
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Preview ticket prices $24.00, seniors $20, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
Regular run Sunday, October 3 - Sunday, November 6
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $29.00, seniors $25, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
PRESS OPENING Sunday, October 3, 2016 - 3 pm
Performances at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660 (Inside Edgewater Presbyterian Church)
Tickets on sale now at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2585755

City Lit returns to the work of one of its favorite authors, this time with Terry McCabe's original adaptation of Wodehouse's 1915 novel about Psmith, a Cambridge University student who takes over a small newspaper while on summer vacation in New York City. Soon the sleepy weekly has shifted its editorial focus from household tips to exposés of slumlords and promotion of boxers. Psmith, who added the silent "P" to his surname to distinguish himself from other Smiths, is one of Wodehouse's most beloved characters, appearing in four novels. Something of a dandy, he wears a monocle, is an articulate and witty speaker and has an amazing ability to escape unharmed from the most outrageous adventures.

The Sundial
Adapted from Shirley Jackson's novel
Directed and Adapted by Paul Edwards
WORLD PREMIERE
January 6 - February 12, 2017
Previews Friday, January 6 and Saturday, January 7 at 7:30 pm; Sunday, January 8 at 3:00 pm
Preview ticket prices $24.00, seniors $20, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
Regular run Tuesday, January 10, 2017 - Sunday, February 12, 2017
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $29.00, seniors $25, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
PRESS OPENING Tuesday, January 10, 2017 at 7:30 pm
Performances at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660 (Inside Edgewater Presbyterian Church)
Tickets on sale now at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2587094

It's the evening of the funeral of Lionel Halloran, master of Halloran House. Was Lionel's mysterious death from a fall down stairs murder? Lionel's widow, Maryjane, believes it was the work of Lionel's mother, Orianna, who will now inherit the ornate estate with a strange sundial in the middle of its grounds. This eerie and suspenseful 1958 novel by the author of The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle will be brought to the City Lit stage in a World Premiere adaptation written and directed by Paul Edwards, who previously adapted Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House for City Lit.

Forty-Two Stories
By Douglas Post
Directed by Scott Westerman
WORLD PREMIERE
April 14 - May 28, 2017
Previews Friday, April 14 - Saturday, April 22
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Preview ticket prices $24.00, seniors $20, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
Regular run Sunday, April 23 - Sunday, May 28
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $29.00, seniors $25, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
Performances at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660 (Inside Edgewater Presbyterian Church)
PRESS OPENING Sunday, April 23 - 3 pm
Tickets on sale now at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2592667

In a high-rise condominium building on Chicago's lakefront, there's a professional student from the University of Chicago moonlighting as a janitor, a stressed-out apartment manager at odds with the residents, and a motley assortment of other staff members struggling with survival in the face of urban pandemonium. Plus, there's suspicion that one of the staffers may be breaking into the units and stealing women's underwear.

Douglas Post's new comedy was first performed as a radio play with L.A. Theatre Works where it featured Ed Begley Jr., Dan Butler, Arye Gross, and Fred Willard. Subsequently, it received a second radio production with Chicago Theatres on the Air. City Lit's production will be the play's world premiere as a stage play. Post is a founding member of Victory Gardens Playwrights Ensemble and author of plays including Bloodshot, Cynical Weathers, Drowning Sorrows, Earth and Sky and Murder in Green Meadows. His musicals include God and Country, The Real Life Story of Johnny de Facto and The Wind in the Willows.

London Assurance
By Dion Boucicault
Directed by Terry McCabe
June 9 - July 23, 2017
Previews Friday, June 9 - Saturday, June 17
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Preview ticket prices $24.00, seniors $20, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
Regular run Sunday, June 18 - Sunday, July 23
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm.
Regular run ticket prices $29.00, seniors $25, students and military $10 (all plus applicable fees)
PRESS OPENING Sunday, June 18 - 3 pm
Performances at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Chicago 60660 (Inside Edgewater Presbyterian Church)
Tickets on sale now at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2592667

Grace Harkaway, who considers herself immune to love, is marrying the elderly Sir Harcourt Courtly for his money. Then she meets his son. Then Courtly meets horse-riding virago Lady Gay Spanker, who enters in her leather-trimmed hunting suit wielding a riding crop, and goes on to complicate the already romantic entanglements of the play. This comedy by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault was first produced in 1841, and was a bridge between Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedies of manners from the late 18th Century to the late 19th Century comedies of Oscar Wilde, who was influenced by London Assurance. It has remained popular ever since. City Lit's production will the play's first in Chicago since 1897. Cameron Feagin will play Lady Gay Spanker, and Kingsley Day will play Sir Harcourt Courtly.

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For over thirty-six years, City Lit Theater has been "dedicated to the vitality and accessibility of the literary imagination. City Lit produces theatrical adaptations of literary material, scripted plays by language-oriented playwrights, and original material."

City Lit is located in the historic Edgewater Presbyterian Church building at 1020 West Bryn Mawr Avenue. We are two blocks east of both the Bryn Mawr Red Line stop and the #36 Broadway and the #84 Peterson buses. We are one block west of the #147 Sheridan and #151 Sheridan buses. Divvy bike stations are located at Bryn Mawr & Lakefront Trail, and at Broadway & Ridge at Bryn Mawr. The metered street parking pay boxes on Bryn Mawr have a three-hour maximum duration and are free on Sundays. $10 valet service is available at Francesca's Bryn Mawr at 1039 W Bryn Mawr diagonally across the street from us on the SW corner of Kenmore and Bryn Mawr and is available whether you are dining at the restaurant or not. There are additional details about parking and dining options at www.citylit.org.

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